This invention relates to recyclable low cost video cassettes.
The numbers of households and businesses with standard format video tape cassette players is very large and is expected to increase shortly to substantially full saturation in 80% or more of households and businesses. Many households and businesses have more than one video tape cassette player. Each of the cassette players is a potential user of many cassettes. Many of the cassettes will be used only once or only a few times. The infrequently used cassettes are usually constructed in the same manner as frequently used cassettes.
The cassette players offer a resource for short term information and advertising. For advertising tapes having only small numbers of plays, cassette housings reels and brakes are available only in full-cost conventional designs, which add to the cost of what otherwise might be low cost advertising media. For example, the cost of the cassettes may far outweigh the cost of producing, planning and delivering advertising tapes to prospective customers for goods and services. It is expected that such advertising cassettes may be used once or twice and then destroyed.
Currently available standard video cassettes are made of up to 37 parts. The parts which make up the cassette are of different construction and different types of materials. That makes it difficult to salvage and recycle the materials when the cassettes are thrown away.
Standard video cassette made with 37 parts have equal numbers of assembly steps and assembly stations. The number of assembly steps and stations is directly related to the cost of manufacturing the video cassettes.
The cost of producing the individual parts and of assembling the separate parts increases the cost of the cassettes.
A need exists for a cassette housing which is made out of material which may be readily recycled without disassembling the cassette. Similarly, a need exists for a low cost video cassette to take advantage of the market that exists for low price prerecorded cassettes and free distribution cassettes used to advertise products and services.